Chap. XXV. 
THE COMMISSIONER. 
99 
of 'Adamawa, a country wherein I was sure that the 
question respecting the course of the river would be 
decided ; but obviously such an undertaking could 
not be engaged in without pecuniary means, and all 
therefore depended on my success in selling advan- 
tageously the merchandise with which I was provided. 
For all these reasons, nothing could be more disa- 
greeable and disheartening to me, though I was not 
quite unprepared for it, than the information which 
I received the verv evening of mv arrival in Kano, 
that the price of merchandise such as I had was very 
low. In the next place, I soon found that Bawu, 
Mr. Gagliuffi's agent, whom in compliance with his 
recommendation we had made also our commissioner, 
was not to be implicitly relied on. He was the second 
son of Haj Hat Saleh, the man so well known from 
the narrative of Captain Clapperton, towards whom 
he seems to have behaved with honesty and fairness, 
and by this means perhaps he had recommended 
himself to Mr. Gagliuffi ; but Bawu was not the right 
man to be entrusted with discretionary power over 
the property of a foreign merchant residing at a great 
distance, and belonging even to another religion, 
or to be the commissioner for European travellers. 
Young and ambitious as he was, he had no other object 
but to insinuate himself into the good graces of the 
governor at the expense of those who had been foolish 
enough to trust themselves into his hands. Besides, 
he had upon his hand a host of younger brothers, who 
all wanted to " eat." Though Haj Hat Saleh seems 
H 2 
